On Saturday I wrote about some of my concerns over a single sentence in Bush’s second inaugural speech . This sentence: “America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” concerns me. One the one hand, I’m inspired because Bush has associated himself with Jefferson’s and Lincoln’s call to extend God’s gift of freedom throughout the world. On the other hand, in national security parlance, declaring something a “vital interest’ means that we are willing to send troops into combat to defend it. This could mean trouble.
I’m in good company. In Sunday’s WaPo, Robert Kagen, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes: This is where Bush may lose the support of most old-fashioned conservatives. His goals are now the antithesis of conservatism. They are revolutionary. But of course -- and this is what American conservatives have generally been loath to admit -- Bush's goals are also deeply American, for the United States is a revolutionary power. Bush has found his way back to the core, universalist principles that have usually shaped American foreign policy, regardless of the nature of the threat. "The great struggle of the epoch [is] between liberty and despotism," James Madison asserted in 1823, and Americans from the founders onward have viewed the world in terms of that struggle.
In fairness, Bush did go on to say: “This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary.” We are left with the question: Who decides when to send our sons in daughters into combat if, for example, a leader in Latin America interferes with free elections?
Freedom is an inalienable right endowed on everyone. While our founding fathers recognized this, they sought in the Constitution to restrict to Congress the power of using force to defend freedom. Congress must answer every other year to the fathers, mothers, and spouses of those young men and women sent overseas to fight for freedom.
As I wrote on Saturday, this principal gets us back to the Just War criterion of Competent Authority. i.e. who decides to make war?
Since we don’t know what the Administration intends by equating our “vital interest” with our “deepest beliefs” we need to pay attention – and insist that the Congress and the press pay attention.
On Saturday I also blogged about how the nature of warfare is changing. I predicted that Church leaders, largely ignorant of strategic literature, will fail to understand this.. When the next crises occurs and Church leaders, out of touch with the changing nature of warfare, will return to the Just War doctrine and pronounce guidance that is confusing and unhelpful. Lincoln faced a similar problem receiving contradictory advice from church men.
I’m glad that the blogging community is here to pay attention.
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